L'intrus
Odd one out: French word families
Fleur, fleuriste, fleurir… fleuve? Three words share a root and one is a lookalike. Find the impostor in eight French word families.
- A2
- 8 rows
- Find the odd one out
- Learn this in the A2 notebook →
In short
French builds families from one root: la fleur → fleurir, le fleuriste; la dent → le dentiste, dentaire. Spotting the root helps you guess new words, but watch for lookalikes that only sound or look similar: le fleuve (river) has nothing to do with flowers, and la mère (mother) isn't la mer (sea).
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Tap the word that doesn't belong in each row.
La mère (mother) only sounds like la mer (sea). Marin and maritime are sea words.
Jouer (to play) isn't related. Le journal was first a daily paper.
Terrible comes from terreur (fear), not terre (earth).
Livrer (to deliver) is a lookalike. Librairie and libraire come from the Latin for book, like livre.
Danser only sounds similar. Dentiste, dentaire come from dent (tooth).
Le champ (field) sounds identical to le chant (song) but is unrelated.
Le matin (morning) isn't a hand word. Manuel, manucure come from Latin manus.
Le fleuve (river) is unrelated to la fleur (flower).
What are French word families?
Suffixes tell you the kind of word: -eur / -euse and -iste make a person (chanteur, fleuriste), -erie a shop (boulangerie, librairie), -aire or -al an adjective (dentaire, maritime).
| Suffix | Meaning | Example |
|---|---|---|
| -eur / -euse | person who does | le chanteur |
| -iste | profession | le fleuriste |
| -erie | shop or place | la boulangerie |
| -aire | adjective | dentaire |
- le librairiela librairie
-erie shops are feminine.
- un chanteur (for a woman)une chanteuse
-eur → -euse.